


At the sea

by Liffis



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Everyone hurts, Gen, Heavy Angst, How Much Angst Can Be Put Into Around 1k Words? The Answer May Surprise You!, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Pain, not exactly character death except it KINDA IS character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:42:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29090730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liffis/pseuds/Liffis
Summary: Geralt lives with the consequences of his decision.Or:A spin-off of GonEwiththeWolveS' story "Fly off the handle", set after chapter 3, in which Geralt gives a lethally wounded Jaskier a potion that is made for witchers and lethal for humans, in the hope that Jaskier will survive this.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	At the sea

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Fly off the handle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23524066) by [GonEwiththeWolveS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GonEwiththeWolveS/pseuds/GonEwiththeWolveS). 



> Have y'all read GonEwiththeWolveS' fanfic? Bc you SHOULD!!!  
> Okay so while reading that fic I was like "mmm yea that is angsty as FUCK but the remains of my maimed heeart can still feel something so that, quite apparently, didnt manage to ground it into a paste successfully!", so I asked them if I could write fic and...like, listen, I love angst fics and I LOVE torturing people. So I tried to shove angst into this, as much as possible.  
> Also, writing is difficult, I've been struggling with it for quite a long, long time. (Got a fic's worth of content stolen, privte stress, depression, yall know the drill.) So. This is definitely not even remotely close to the original fic. But basically this is just me clapping VERY loud applause at "Fly off the handle", anyways. (GO READ IT)

It’s his penance. It has to be. Monsters, he could deal with. Same for enchantments, torture, anything – anything at all, because most of it, he has experienced already. 

But this? 

Mayhaps it is because nothing in his long, long, overlong life has shown him so much the consequences of his actions. Not even Blaviken had. Not like this.

Not like Jaskier –

Geralt swallows. Looks at him, too-small beneath the linen. But it is still not quite spring, the air still carrying the dying breath of winter stubbornly clinging on. The blankets are needed still; Geralt can’t let him freeze. 

Later, he will go to the beach with him – the sun will do Jaskier good, even if it is still cold enough that they won’t be able to stay for long. Doesn’t matter. The sea is wide and grey and salty and sometimes, if he has a good day, Geralt can almost believe that Jaskier can feel it, too. 

That they’re at the sea, just as he’d asked for. 

/

Jaskier gurgles, wet and coppery, and his wide, wide eyes tell enough of a story. Geralt clings to him, his heart more than his hands, and he wants to beg – Jaskier, Jaskier’s body, Melitele, the earth greedily drinking Jaskier’s blood – anyone –

/

He shouldn’t.

/

He does.

/

Just one tiny, brief moment to possibly turn the fates. A risk. A gamble. 

Geralt tips the potion into Jaskier’s mouth. It will kill him – but the injury will do so even quicker, and Jaskier doesn’t want to die. (Geralt doesn’t. And he holds the potion, puts it to Jaskier’s lips, has him drink it.)

/

The first few hours, Jaskier seems to…not exactly grow better. But he doesn’t keep on dying, at least: the blood trickles to a stop under Geralt’s bandages and stitches. The air is still heavy and sick with iron and Jaskier is too pale – but his heart beats on, albeit weak. Its slow, trembling thumps are the only noise Geralt can focus on. 

And so he waits. 

/

During the afternoon, he will go on a walk with Jaskier. Along the beach. Geralt will look for little trinkets: glass the waves will crash ashore, gnarled woods in strange shapes, glittering rocks. 

Gently, he will put them into Jaskier’s lap, his limp hands, collecting a few new ones with every walk. And when they’re back and Geralt has made sure Jaskier’s warmed up again and lying so he will not develop sores, Geralt will start talking. Will try to come up with stories how they came to be the way to this beach. 

He is a bad storyteller and in his mind, he can hear Jaskier’s amused voice – no, no, the storytelling has always been Jaskier’s strength. But sitting in silence next to Jaskier, to his pale face, thin and unmoving, his body growing thin from it, no matter how much Geralt moved him, tried to keep his muscles in shape –

it is horrible. The silence is its own torture, a reminder –

/

The screaming starts before dawn. 

Jaskier screams, back bowed, body tensed, mouth wide open, he screams like the world itself, screams and screams, even as the stitches rip open under the tension, blood streaming anew, he screams –

Geralt can do nothing.

/

Every few hours, Geralt turns him, as gently as he can. At first, he hadn’t known this was something to be done when – 

So, he had to learn. Asked healers, travellers, anyone, really: all who came across these deserted little lands, he asked. And learnt. How to turn Jaskier, how to stretch his muscles and move his arms and legs and whole body to keep at least some kind of strength to him. 

It is but a pale shadow of how Jaskier had truly been. 

All of it. No matter what Geralt does: the vibrant, soft blankets he bought all make Jaskier look even paler, even sicklier; the lute in the corner is a painful reminder of how silent it all is; and the way how it is Geralt who is now talking, if though haltingly, is a sign how Jaskier won’t ever, not now. No more. Not ever.

Jaskier could’ve lived in a court, in Oxenfurt, in silks and music and joy –

But his shell survives, here, a tiny cottage along a half-forgotten sea. 

/

By the time the sun has risen, Jaskier is shaking with fever, his eyes wide open and unseeing – and pitch black. 

His injury oozes black, too. 

“Geralt”, he whispers, voice cracked and broken after hours of screaming, “Geralt!”

“I’m here.”, Geralt murmurs back, voice no louder than a breath, as he takes Jaskier’s hand as gently as he can. Barely dares touching him, really. 

A faint, weak smile ghosts over Jaskier’s lips and it’s – this is how it has been, how they had been, and the contrast rips something wide open in Geralt and it aches. 

Soon after, Jaskier starts drifting away.

/

At first, Geralt believes it to be sleep. To be expected, after such an injury.

But Jaskier doesn’t wake.

/

Jaskier doesn’t wake.

/

Geralt barely dares moving him, let alone taking him somewhere else, but soon, there’s a hotness to the body parts that touch the floor, like a bruise. So he moves him to another position that doesn’t tear the re-stitched injury.

/

The first healer he finds cannot help him.

/

Nor the second, third, fourth.

Fifth, who is also a sorceress, albeit a weak one. 

/

Geralt takes him – to the sea. 

It could be anywhere, but where to go? There is nowhere. No place to go, none where he should be, could leave Jaskier. 

Doesn’t want to leave Jaskier.

Maybe he doesn’t deserve to, either.

So, the sea it is. Until Geralt finds a small, rundown hut.

/

He turns it into – a dwelling. A house. Not a home. He’s no longer sure if there ever can be a house, even if it is a house with Jaskier in it – if Jaskier is as silent as a grave.

/

Outside, the waves crash against the shore, just as they do every day, since the beginning of time and until the end of times -

Geralt gently turns Jaskier and tries not to have his heart break as much as it does when Jaskier’s bright blue eyes skim over him, unseeing. Lost to – the world. Living. Because of him.

Geralt swallows the salt and tears and regret and if he could, he would give his life if only – if only. If there hadn’t been the potion. If he hadn’t been so selfish. If he hadn’t given the potion. If he’d rather spilled it. Taken a knife, perhaps: one cut, clean and swift. It would have given Jaskier a clean-cut end, a story finishing with a glorious end: he died for his tales, lost to adventure.

Instead this: Jaskier’s mind, all that he is, had been, could’ve been, all of it: lost, as his body lives on.


End file.
